BALLWIN MISSOURI IN THE 70'S/80'S
My parents raised me in a local Baptist Church in Ballwin Missouri.
There were no molesters or hellfire freaks (that I knew of).
It was just the last place in the world that a punk/metalhead would ever want to hang out.
The place was filled with old ladies with hats, dudes wearing suits, and a lot of well-adjusted preppy/jock type kids. I don't mean that in a judgey way, I think they had good intentions and were generally nice people.
The worst thing about my experience was the suffocating pressure to conform to the church culture or be ambiguously looked down upon (probably a pressure my parents felt and then displaced onto me).
I don't know what the church was really about, but after I grew a bit and started to have opinions the only thing I remembered was the culture of conformity and lessons on how to be 'good' according to adults.
So I decided that I hated Church.
For a while my 10th grade Sunday school teacher was this ex-hippie with long hair and a leather jacket.
He was really enthusiastic, but he would get frustrated when we showed no interest.
As I got older and my parents got more distracted there was less pressure to go to church.
By this time I think I was pretty much the only kid in my senior boys class.
The volunteer teacher was a smart guy, he saw that I was tuned out.
He was really cool about it. He didn't force the curriculum on me, instead he would just ask me what was going on in my life.
Eventually I told him that I didn't want to do it anymore (waking up early on Sunday and sitting in our Sunday school cubicle).
We started meeting at a Dairy Queen after school and sometimes at his house.
It was a little awkward because his daughter was my age and she was this preppy girl that my kind didn't mix with. Also, I was not 'good Christian' material.
That arrangement eventually fizzled out.
But I walked away with something positive, I knew a Christian that was an okay guy.
He let me in his house and made me Sloppy-Joes, even though his daughter and I were not... well, we were never hostile to each other.
A WARNING TO CHURCHES
My youth pastor was fired while I was in the youth group.
He married a girl from the group after she graduated.
It's not as weird as it sounds if you know the circumstances.
Anyway, he was fired because people were worried about the message it would send.
Or, they were worried about the parents that were worried about the message it would send.
Ironically, firing him sent a worse message than the one they were worried about.
The elders were worried about some message about endorsing some kind of sin or saying it's okay to breach some relationship boundary.
The message that was sent was, "if you sin you're out".
The other message was, "we're all hypocrites".
All that stuff about forgiveness and grace was lip service.
I figured, the only way to stay in the church was to be as phony as possible, pretending to be in line with the Christian ethics de jour was the only way to be accepted.
So, even though Dairy Queen/Sloppy-Joe man was cool, I was out.
RETROSPECT
What do I think should have happened?
My first thought is that the Church is supposed to be like a family.
If my kids had an uncle that was gay, cohabitating, involved in an abortion, smoking weed or watching porn, I wouldn't disown him or fire him as an uncle.
I'm sure some pharisees would, but they shouldn't get to have a say in church policy.
My second thought is I'm very concerned about making fear based decisions.
There are certain kinds of adults that I don't want to expose my kids to, you know, predators, the ones that are targeting kids for evil purposes.
Aside from dangerous people, if I'm afraid of our kids being exposed to people and ideas that I don't want influencing them then I should prohibit the reading of the old testament. When we teach people about the life of King David there is some natural explaining that we guide through with the student.
Generally, I'd rather help my kids process what they are exposed to, do their own critical thinking about ethics and still accept people that have views they don't agree with.
I saw an interview with Jello Biafra (singer of the Dead Kennedys), he was asked how he would react if his child was listening to a Nazi-punk band like Screwdriver. Jello said that he wouldn't prohibit it, but would try to talk about it, ask "what is it you like about this band? Is it the killer bass player or something (the intense energy)?"
That's a pretty calm response to a pretty scary prospect, the idea of our kid going down the wrong path.
But what's going to help them more? An extreme reaction or a calm conversation?
I just feel like if no one is in danger of getting hurt, everything else is an opportunity to learn critical thinking and preparation for the independence of the adult world.
FAIRFAX VIRGINIA IN THE 90'S
Flash forward, I was out of High School, my folks split up. I moved to Fairfax VA with my dad.
I wanted to get my life together, which included having some kind of spiritual life.
If there was any 'seed' of faith planted in my youth it was guilt.
But, mostly I was just worried about going to hell.
I had a neighbor that raked his leaves at the same time as me all the time (he probably did it on purpose).
He was a pastor of an International Church of Christ cell.
If you don't know them, they are cultish freaks.
I hung out with him for a while and he really challenged my beliefs.
He said a lot of stuff that didn't make sense.
He said that I had to be baptized.
I told him I was baptized.
He said, no, I had to be baptized as a believer.
I said I was a believer at the time.
He said it didn't count, and I had to be baptized in his church.
I asked him what happened to people that wanted to be saved that lived in the dessert?
He said that God would work a miracle to provide water and if God didn't do that, then it was because God saw their heart, that the person wasn't really serious.
I thought baptism seemed like a really arbitrary requirement for what was supposed to be spiritual and transcendent.
His response was basically, 'well God said so.'
I thought, 'well, it sounds like you're saying so.'
THE TEST
He challenged me to go to my dad's Baptist pastor and ask him three questions (three that my neighbor had prepared), he said that this Baptist pastor would not be able to answer these questions and that this would prove that he was right.
I made the appointment, asked the questions, the pastor said 'I don't know'.
I was relieved to finally see some authenticity, so I joined the Baptist church.
My neighbor told me that he was dusting me off of his heels, and then he wouldn't talk to me anymore.
He proved that I made the right decision.
That's how I became a Baptist.
Next I'll tell you how I became a Christian.
Anyone else have a weird story about growing up in Church?
Anyone become religious before they came to Christ?
Have any experience with the International Church of Christ?
Please comment below.
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